Ashton Eaton after winning decathlon gold at Moscow World Championships 2013
At SPIKES we’ve been lucky enough to chat to the world’s finest athletes, and here’s our pick of an awesome year of track and field. Just click the link on the athlete’s name to read their full story.
"For me, this is going to be the winter of throws.
We have to sort out the throws."
Katarina Johnson-Thompson (she later set a javelin PB at the world champs in August).
"Didier Drogba told me, ‘You had me nervous and doing sleepless nights ahead of the 100m final, I was so nervous for you.’"
"Competition is pretty much the essence of everything, it gives humans drive."
Ashton Eaton quotes the book that helped re-energise him after breaking the WR.
"I never want to talk about the exact workouts because someone will think that they also should do that, and they will get hurt. They don’t know what we did to get to that point."
“I could and would eat up to 30 bananas a day.”
"The 200m world record would be the one I’d really love to break again, to see if it’s maybe even possible to get under 19 seconds. That would be something special."
"I just want to be a good person, and I want to help grow my home country Ethiopia."
"I love my job. I wouldn’t change it for the world."
"For me, to jump, is very emotional and the noise from the stands is too much. It makes me confused to the point I cannot think which side I need to jump from. In silence it helps me concentrate. It also doesn’t make me feel like I am the centre of the universe."
"I love track and field. It is a beautiful sport, but people don’t like the way it is being force fed to them right now."
"He’s just such a humble man, which makes a big difference. He doesn’t have a big ego or anything like that. He’s just a down-to-earth, chilled out, 70-year-old, awesome coach."
"It is all about winning. I’ve ran 12 seconds something and lost. I’ve ran 13.2 and won a grand prix final. It is not about times, but about coming across that line first."
"We dream about it. We train hard, and we make all the sacrifices… and to actually see yourself on the podium, to actually see yourself being called world champion. For me it was a wow and a OMG moment. Oh my gosh."
